Time Machine / Backup issue on 2016 MacBook Pro

It's in warranty and new. Make an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar for service. If needed find an Apple Store - Find a Store - Apple.

I have the same issue. Apple Care told me to reinstall OS. Still not working. I've used several drives on all ports. Made an appointment @ Apple for Tuesday. The Guy I spoke to at AC recommended to try beta OS. I'll install and try b/u again. I'll let you know if this works.

Still craped out. Has to be Hardware., albeit Apple insists it's s/w

Same issue on TWO brand-new 15" MBP touch bars. GRRRR! Apple! help! Cannot backup machine!

Daver wrote:

Cannot backup machine!

If you have important data use Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper! or even Disk Utility to make sure you have a copy on an external disk. Time Machine is OK, but one backup is not enough (as this issue is demonstrating).

These new models require Apple to use specialist tools to access the soldered on storage if it fails.

Thanks Drew Reece; I am for many years using CCC, SD! and TM for backups, successfully with other machines. With these brand new MBPtb's, almost nothing is working, trying different brands of disks, different cables, etc all through Apple's own adapters or with drive manufacturer's USBc-USBc and/or Apple's cable.

I sure hope Apple provides an answer soon. One machine is going abroad where it won't be able to be serviced. You spend this much money, and you expect the thing to work properly...

Daver, it sounds like you are about to export this Mac to another country. The warranty on these devices are not international as far as I can tell (see your terms & conditions). I'd suggest you return this Mac now & purchase one in the country where you plan to use it if that is at all possible, otherwise you may have to ship it back to the country of origin for any warranty or repairs.

It's sad it isn't working but new devices often have issues. It may be safer to wait & get one in the country where you plan to use it.

Other online backup services may keep you ticking over if this one is refusing to work with external devices (Arq, BackBlaze etc).

Hello; we have obtained warranty service on US purchased Macs in other developed countries in the past. Purchasing in the new location is not an option. I manage the IT for the family and we have to stick with this machine or somehow revert to the previous one.

We've been dedicated Apple product users since the 80s and it's so sad to see a lemony machine come out now, after they've had so many decades to make things better than this out of the gate.

online storage is not an option either. where that Mac is going, internet is intermittent and slow even when it's on. We're talking hundreds of GB that can't be backed up at all right now.

We'll have to hope the machine hangs in there and this is a software issue that can be remedied and then resume backing up.

Have you booted to the recovery OS's to see if that can use external disks?

Disk Utility can clone via the 'restore' option. That can indicate if it is just a conflict on the 10.12 OS + your software. Recovery mode should be so stripped down that it works with external hardware.

I have exactly the same problem with my MBP 2016. I have reinstalled OS, etc... I am also using Apple's USB-C adapter and a new disk.

Was using 13" with i7. Apple could not resolve in store. Gave up and upgraded to 15" top tier and it works fine.

same issue on a 15" MBP 2016

Already did a fresh install without backup: simply hope that is SW and not HW

With usb 2.0 (or via wireless on a NAS) no issues: seems related to the higher I/o with USB 3.0

New 15" here. My external drive dedicated to Time Machine did not freeze when backing up. However, when I have two external drives (attached via Thunderbolt adaptor as they are not usb-c cables), the computer crashes when transferring files. I use SuperDuper (software) to make an exact duplicate and reached out to them. They said it was a problem with the new computers:

This is a problem with the new MacBook Pros. They crash under heavy I/O on USB/Thunderbolt with a low-level Machine Check. It happens with external Ethernet adapters too, and with Time Machine (to directly connected drives). You'll need to talk to Apple about the problem...

have a look at the logs under /Library/Logs/DiagnosticsReports

Check the *.panic logs if you have that entry:

*** MCA Error Report ***

CPU Machine Check Architecture Error Dump (CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, CPUID: 0x506E3)

CATERR detected! No MCA data found.

Yes.